


Bingo: "Caffeinating Themselves into a Different Dimension"

by taylor_tut



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Exhaustion, Fluff, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Whump, but really mild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-18
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:20:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27074860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: another bingo prompt! this one is for Jon overdoing it on caffeine in an attempt to fend off a migraine. Sasha is there
Comments: 8
Kudos: 104





	Bingo: "Caffeinating Themselves into a Different Dimension"

Jon doesn’t drink coffee. Jon doesn’t  _ like _ coffee. It’s bitter and strong and always makes him intolerably nervous, which is why he swore off it in university after Georgie pointed out that he always had a more difficult time getting to sleep on days that he joined her at the cafe, even if they went early in the morning for lattes. 

However, this is an emergency. When the visual aura of a migraine nearly caused him to slam directly into Sasha in the hallway without seeing her, he’d immediately taken himself back to his office for a dose of Panadol Extra, only to realize that he’d given the last of his bottle to Rosie when he’d found her sitting at the reception desk with an ice pack over her eyes last week. He’d thought he would have more time to get around to buying another—now that he’d found prophylactics that worked well for him, he gets migraines so rarely that doesn’t think about them unless he’s expecting a change in the weather or fasting. 

Rather than enduring the humiliating ordeal of going down to her desk and asking her if she still had any left, he’d decided to make due with what he had: paracetamol and an old, dusty drip coffee maker that he's sure no one has used in ages. 

He'd downed the entire mug just as soon as it had been cool enough to drink, as the longer he waits, the higher the probability that he will be fully taken out for the rest of the day, as opposed to the moderate headache and brain fog he might get lucky enough to experience as the worst of it if he can head it off early. 

Unsure about the dosage and really, really not wanting to be incapacitated here at work, Jon makes and shotguns an ill-advised second cup, then another, then shuts the lights off in his office and waits for the verdict. 

The good news is he's able to combat most of the migraine. The pain is there; it's certainly there. But he can see, and he can walk and talk, so that's a sign that it worked. He’s able to turn the lights back on after about fifteen minutes.

The bad news is that there is no doubt that he overdid it on the caffeine. His hands are shaking far too much for him to think about getting any real work done, but he's too agitated to go lie down, and too nauseated to want to think about getting himself home, though whether that's the migraine or the coffee is anyone's guess. 

“Hey, Jon,” Sasha greets, opening his door without knocking—why do none of his assistants never knock? 

“Sasha,” he replies, trying to force his tone to be even and calm despite feeling anything but. “Can I help you?” 

She smiles, looking slightly confused. “Erm, I’m actually checking on the statement I gave you earlier, the one where the woman refused to talk to me and demanded to speak with my manager?” 

Jon tires his hardest to remember, and he has a vague sense of Sasha irritably handing him a folder this morning, but he supposes that had been lost to the headache prodrome. 

She’s waiting for his answer. “If you haven’t had a chance to get to it—”

“--Sorry,” he interjects, cutting her off without meaning to. The caffeine is making his responses choppy, ill-timed, just a little too loud. She jumps slightly. “I had a bit of a migraine this morning; I’m afraid I can’t—would you mind reminding me?” 

Her expression falls in concern. It makes sense, he supposes, as she’s only ever seen the worst of his migraines (because if they’re not so bad that he can’t handle them himself, he doesn’t mention them), and while he can’t remember many specifics, he’s sure she’s walked him to the cot before, her hand over his eyes while Tim rushed ahead to turn off all the lights along the way and Martin situated the spare storage room so he wouldn’t have to endure the sound of unfolding the cot. 

“Are you—” 

“Fine, fine,” he cuts her off. Again. “Better, now.” He frowns. “What was it you wanted?” 

“I think you should have a lie down,” Sasha says, and he’s sure that’s not what they were talking about moments ago, though he can’t remember the actual topic. “You’re pale, and you seem… out of it. Jittery.” 

“That’s just the coffee.” 

She thinks it’s a lie. “You hate coffee.” 

“So do migraines.” 

“Jon—”

“Statement,” he says lamely. “You were talking about a statement.” Apparently, recalling a topic they’d literally just been discussing a minute and a half ago is not as impressive to her as it seems to him, because it doesn’t do anything to smooth over the worry lines in her face. He hates that he’s doing that to her, marking her like this. 

“How much coffee did you drink?” 

“Three cups?” She hisses air through clenched teeth and he rolls his eyes, which hurts. “Tim drinks that much all the time.” 

“Right, but Tim is twice your size and drinks coffee daily,” she counters. “It’s not as much for him.”

“Tim is NOT twice my size.” Though, perhaps he is. Muscle weighs more, he thinks, and Tim is both tall and stocky, unlike Jon’s short, thin--

“I would feel much better if you laid down,” she says, derailing his thoughts. “At least until you stop… sweating, just sitting there.” 

Embarrassment flashes hot across his face even though Sasha means no judgement, and he swipes a hand across his forehead to find that it is, indeed, damp. Hm. Perhaps she’s got a point. 

“Well, I am finding it rather—is it obvious?--difficult to focus,” he admits, and she chuckles. 

“Yes, Jon,” she says. “It’s obvious. Come on. I’ll turn the lights off in the break room. Tim and Martin are still on lunch; they’ll keep an eye on you.” 

He trusts her more than he does his own disjointed thoughts right now, so he lets her escort him out of his office and onto the break room couch. 


End file.
